The problem with assuming the woman in the BBC interview video is a nanny.

The laugh out loud viral BBC interview that took over the internet this weekend has sparked debate over racial stereotyping.

Professor Robert Kelly’s live television interview on the BBC about South Korea was going well until his two children interrupted.

When professor Kelly’s wife, Jung-a Kim, rushed into retrieve her children, many people assumed that she was the nanny.

An article on Time.com initially said “a frenzied nanny burst in, in a cartoon-like blur, and corrals the children out of the room”, according to The Guardian.

They have since updated the story.

Why did people assume the mother was the nanny?

The presumption that a woman who LOOKS LIKE HER KIDS is the NANNY, by people who presume everyone employs Asian STAFF is making me … #bbc pic.twitter.com/8VIZsKbRrR

— Meryl O’Rourke© (@MerylORourke) March 10, 2017

In an article for the BBC, journalist Helier Cheung questioned why people assumed an Asian woman was the nanny.

“Many people feel the assumption that Ms Kim was a helper, rather than the children’s mother, was grounded in racial stereotypes about the roles played by Asian women,” writes Cheung.

“Why do so many people think the woman in that BBC interview video with the kids is the nanny?” I wondered.

And then I remembered racism

— Babygar Gotbackagon (@KellyKanayama) March 11, 2017

Cheung also says many still assume, “consciously or unconsciously, that people tend to date others from the same ethnic group”.

That BBC news video is cute, but am I the only one annoyed that a lot of people assume the Asian woman is a babysitter/nanny/the help?

— Nu Yang (@nuyangwriter) March 10, 2017

The presumption that Ms Kim’s role was the nanny has also started a wide-reaching debate on social media.

In that BBC interview, many assumed it was his nanny not his wife who got the kids. But if she’d been white, would they have thought nanny?

— Jay Kuo (@nycjayjay) March 13, 2017

The main weird thing about reactions to that BBC video is people assuming that Asian woman in white guy’s house = nanny

— Ben Brisebois (@BenBrisebois) March 10, 2017

Not so subtle racism and classism in responses to that ‘kids invading BBC Skype call,” assuming the Asian woman -must- be the maid or nanny.

— Richard Whittaker (@YorkshireTX) March 10, 2017

Did you reconsider your implicit biases when you learnt the Asian woman was their mother not the nanny in the BBC video?

— Yasin Koc (@spyasin) March 12, 2017

Phil Yu, a blogger at Angry Asian Man, told The LA Times that people were stereotyping.

“There are stereotypes of Asian women as servile, as passive, as fulfilling some kind of service role,” he said.

In an article for Romper, writer Jen McGuire said this sort of “casual, almost benign stereotyping” can be dangerous.

“Just because it’s not aggressive or overt doesn’t mean it’s not changing our world view. In fact, because it can be so much more difficult to pinpoint, it’s also harder to call out.”